In the 90's it was all about fighting games. Action filled the screen and provided something violent and powerful to gamers. Arcades at some point might have had more fighting games than shooters and maze games which really were the only games that arcades could get quarters from. Could you imagine Final Fantasy or other RPGs in an arcade?
As arcades profited hand over fist with games like Capcom's Street Fighter 2 and Neo Geo's Samurai Showdown and Midways' Mortal Kombat, gamers at home were playing the latest Mario spin off. Platformers ruled at this point, around the early 1990's.
Street Fighter 2 wasn't Capcoms first game from arcades to make it to the home systems but it is arguably one of the most successful. SF 2 was the first game cart I owned on the SNES and it was a lucky break for me, because I loved the arcade version of that game. In those days I didn't really care about the play mechanics, graphics or even the games story, I just digged how fun it was to kick ass. Every fighter had moves that made them unique, each fighter had a culture and storyline. My favorite character that I had learned every move for was Ryu, but as is turns out he was EVERYONE's fave. Every character was pretty kick ass to me, and they all became the token characters that every fighting game afterwards had to have. Without Ken and Ryu there wouldn't be a Sub-Zero and Scorpion.
But this article isn't all about Street Fighter 2, in fact this is merely an example of what you do right in a fighting game. I could mention better fighting games, like Samurai Showdown on the Neo Geo, but I'm going for commonality, who the hell really owned a Neo Geo system (I sure didn't)?
There is an ingredient list for a fighter and it goes a little something like this:
Good variety of selectable characters- A game should have a hero or heroes, but you should always be able to choose which you like, playable villains are a good treat as well. The characters need to me cool looking or at least interesting. Masks, costumes, uniforms, crazy hair, a clown suit, SOMETHING, don't just have them fighting in jeans and a concert tee unless its necessary to the character.
Fast paced but smooth action- The animation of a fighting game must be smooth, there must be many frames or at least enough so that you know what is going on and you don't suffer from that "what the hell was that" syndrome. As smooth as it all should be it needs to be fast moving as well, that is the fuel for action: speed.
Special Moves- The punch and the kick are required but just as much needs to be specials. Fireballs, spin kicks, something that knocks more off the opponents life bar other than punches. These moves are also a good way to show off to all the other putzes at the arcade or on the home system.
Good controls- Dammit NOTHING fucks up a game more than bad controls, not just fighters but ANY game. For a head to head fighting game there should be a directional pad or joystick that helps the opponent walk left to right, crouch and jump in any direction. What grinds my gears is when the game developers try to make a button for jump (Ala' Power Moves one of the worst fighting games ever). Hitting back on the D-pad should be block and Mortal Kombat broke that rule which is one thing I never liked about the MK series. There should also be buttons for the punches and kicks and another good piece of spice that most fighters do is have 2 or more different kinds of punches and kicks, otherwise it just gets boring.
Challenging (NOT CHEAP) Opponents (single player rule)- A challenge is when your opponent reads you or mirrors you. The AI of a fighting game should keep you on your toes by having a system of defending themselves and not letting you kick their ass. What the AI controlled character should NOT have is a set of moves and attacks that drain 1/2 of your life bar and never even let you try to bring them down. Most bosses in fighting games are extremely cheap so cheap that you lose no matter what you do. Kintaro and Goro were cheap, they had punches and specials that drained and trapped you into defeat. They however were able to be brought down by sticking to a pattern or combo that works (that takes forever to learn). Shao Khan was a bit easier, his specials could turn your fighter into mincemeat but his personality made him an easy target, but it was a challenging target nonetheless. During a match he would point at you and taunt you, giving you an opportunity to strike. I am a calm man, I should never need to throw my controller at the wall because Eyedol of Killer Instinct recharged his health after knocking me clear across the screen and took me out as soon as I got back up, that is just cheap bastard AI not challenging AI.
A World To Fight In- It doesn't have to be a very creative place but an interesting place. Behind the characters there should be something that gives us the impression that its a cool place to be duking it out. MK2 had great backgrounds, it was a surrealistic cornucopia of wastelands and armories and rooms in the sky. Things moved around like floating monks and people on fire, and I loved the giant bats on the 'Kombat Tomb' level. MK3 on the other hand gave us city streets, banks and subways which is the same shit we see everyday in the real world, that is laziness right there as if the design team just went to New York and took snapshots. While backgrounds should be cool, they should never be distracting. The Street Fighter: The Movie arcade game literally had clips of the movie playing on giant TV screens in the back of one of the levels which was total overkill.
A Reason To Fight AKA a good story- There are people fighting in a game, OK WHY? Post-nuclear war? International tournament? Revenge? Bringing down a criminal gang of mo-hawked thugs? Why is my character beating or getting beaten in this game? Gaming is a lot like Hollywood and plots, while ignored by many, offer home gamers a chance to really go deeper into the game and add to the replay value. I can remember trying to beat Mortal Kombat 2 with every character just to see the different endings, and that's getting your moneys worth. A fighting game can win bonus points with me if the story is original, there was so many games based on the idea that a 'tournament' was going on, and that gets stupid after awhile.
Good Graphics- Attention developers! Be as creative as with this, just make sure its interesting and I can see what the fuck I'm doing. This also can go hand in hand with the character rule.
Sound- Today's games have real MTV bands writing songs for games to supply background music. But in the old days developers had to get creative and get behind a synthesizer to give us the killer sound track that we heard in Killer Instinct. Another good layer to please the aural orifices is sound effects, and that's when you hear the bones breaking, the grunting, the screams, the kung foo yells, the body blows, and splatter of human remains of Mortal Kombat. On a system like the Super Nintendo there is no excuse to hear a blip or beep unless I've kicked a robot character in the throat.
These are not official rules but they are things that I pay attention to when I play a game. Many game developers break these rules and the results are never good. The aforementioned Power Moves game was a load of shit in so many ways but the main rule they broke was using a button to make your character jump, and that just fucks with me. Rise of The Robots only let you play as one character, which automatically made me hate the game and I hadn't even begun a fight yet. Bullshit! I could mention others but I'll refrain and save it all for my "Best of the Worst" segment in a later article (I can't wait to get to that one).
Sometimes developers bend the rules, and that works out well sometimes. As time goes by the rules change but the song should remain the same, so to speak. Mortal Kombat's 'block' button was and is a fine example, it took some getting used to, but it worked out. Killer Instinct sacrificed a good story in favor of fast action and great graphics, and I was still satisfied with the end result. The point is, a fighting game or any game needs these basic building blocks as a foundation, but a little extra here and a little less there never hurts but, go to far with or away from something and you've got a recipe for disaster.
These are also the things I'll be basing my reviews on. Its going to be tough because most of the games I've played are older and dated, but the point of most of my reviews should be this:
As arcades profited hand over fist with games like Capcom's Street Fighter 2 and Neo Geo's Samurai Showdown and Midways' Mortal Kombat, gamers at home were playing the latest Mario spin off. Platformers ruled at this point, around the early 1990's.
Street Fighter 2 wasn't Capcoms first game from arcades to make it to the home systems but it is arguably one of the most successful. SF 2 was the first game cart I owned on the SNES and it was a lucky break for me, because I loved the arcade version of that game. In those days I didn't really care about the play mechanics, graphics or even the games story, I just digged how fun it was to kick ass. Every fighter had moves that made them unique, each fighter had a culture and storyline. My favorite character that I had learned every move for was Ryu, but as is turns out he was EVERYONE's fave. Every character was pretty kick ass to me, and they all became the token characters that every fighting game afterwards had to have. Without Ken and Ryu there wouldn't be a Sub-Zero and Scorpion.
But this article isn't all about Street Fighter 2, in fact this is merely an example of what you do right in a fighting game. I could mention better fighting games, like Samurai Showdown on the Neo Geo, but I'm going for commonality, who the hell really owned a Neo Geo system (I sure didn't)?
There is an ingredient list for a fighter and it goes a little something like this:
Good variety of selectable characters- A game should have a hero or heroes, but you should always be able to choose which you like, playable villains are a good treat as well. The characters need to me cool looking or at least interesting. Masks, costumes, uniforms, crazy hair, a clown suit, SOMETHING, don't just have them fighting in jeans and a concert tee unless its necessary to the character.
Fast paced but smooth action- The animation of a fighting game must be smooth, there must be many frames or at least enough so that you know what is going on and you don't suffer from that "what the hell was that" syndrome. As smooth as it all should be it needs to be fast moving as well, that is the fuel for action: speed.
Special Moves- The punch and the kick are required but just as much needs to be specials. Fireballs, spin kicks, something that knocks more off the opponents life bar other than punches. These moves are also a good way to show off to all the other putzes at the arcade or on the home system.
Good controls- Dammit NOTHING fucks up a game more than bad controls, not just fighters but ANY game. For a head to head fighting game there should be a directional pad or joystick that helps the opponent walk left to right, crouch and jump in any direction. What grinds my gears is when the game developers try to make a button for jump (Ala' Power Moves one of the worst fighting games ever). Hitting back on the D-pad should be block and Mortal Kombat broke that rule which is one thing I never liked about the MK series. There should also be buttons for the punches and kicks and another good piece of spice that most fighters do is have 2 or more different kinds of punches and kicks, otherwise it just gets boring.
Challenging (NOT CHEAP) Opponents (single player rule)- A challenge is when your opponent reads you or mirrors you. The AI of a fighting game should keep you on your toes by having a system of defending themselves and not letting you kick their ass. What the AI controlled character should NOT have is a set of moves and attacks that drain 1/2 of your life bar and never even let you try to bring them down. Most bosses in fighting games are extremely cheap so cheap that you lose no matter what you do. Kintaro and Goro were cheap, they had punches and specials that drained and trapped you into defeat. They however were able to be brought down by sticking to a pattern or combo that works (that takes forever to learn). Shao Khan was a bit easier, his specials could turn your fighter into mincemeat but his personality made him an easy target, but it was a challenging target nonetheless. During a match he would point at you and taunt you, giving you an opportunity to strike. I am a calm man, I should never need to throw my controller at the wall because Eyedol of Killer Instinct recharged his health after knocking me clear across the screen and took me out as soon as I got back up, that is just cheap bastard AI not challenging AI.
A World To Fight In- It doesn't have to be a very creative place but an interesting place. Behind the characters there should be something that gives us the impression that its a cool place to be duking it out. MK2 had great backgrounds, it was a surrealistic cornucopia of wastelands and armories and rooms in the sky. Things moved around like floating monks and people on fire, and I loved the giant bats on the 'Kombat Tomb' level. MK3 on the other hand gave us city streets, banks and subways which is the same shit we see everyday in the real world, that is laziness right there as if the design team just went to New York and took snapshots. While backgrounds should be cool, they should never be distracting. The Street Fighter: The Movie arcade game literally had clips of the movie playing on giant TV screens in the back of one of the levels which was total overkill.
A Reason To Fight AKA a good story- There are people fighting in a game, OK WHY? Post-nuclear war? International tournament? Revenge? Bringing down a criminal gang of mo-hawked thugs? Why is my character beating or getting beaten in this game? Gaming is a lot like Hollywood and plots, while ignored by many, offer home gamers a chance to really go deeper into the game and add to the replay value. I can remember trying to beat Mortal Kombat 2 with every character just to see the different endings, and that's getting your moneys worth. A fighting game can win bonus points with me if the story is original, there was so many games based on the idea that a 'tournament' was going on, and that gets stupid after awhile.
Good Graphics- Attention developers! Be as creative as with this, just make sure its interesting and I can see what the fuck I'm doing. This also can go hand in hand with the character rule.
Sound- Today's games have real MTV bands writing songs for games to supply background music. But in the old days developers had to get creative and get behind a synthesizer to give us the killer sound track that we heard in Killer Instinct. Another good layer to please the aural orifices is sound effects, and that's when you hear the bones breaking, the grunting, the screams, the kung foo yells, the body blows, and splatter of human remains of Mortal Kombat. On a system like the Super Nintendo there is no excuse to hear a blip or beep unless I've kicked a robot character in the throat.
These are not official rules but they are things that I pay attention to when I play a game. Many game developers break these rules and the results are never good. The aforementioned Power Moves game was a load of shit in so many ways but the main rule they broke was using a button to make your character jump, and that just fucks with me. Rise of The Robots only let you play as one character, which automatically made me hate the game and I hadn't even begun a fight yet. Bullshit! I could mention others but I'll refrain and save it all for my "Best of the Worst" segment in a later article (I can't wait to get to that one).
Sometimes developers bend the rules, and that works out well sometimes. As time goes by the rules change but the song should remain the same, so to speak. Mortal Kombat's 'block' button was and is a fine example, it took some getting used to, but it worked out. Killer Instinct sacrificed a good story in favor of fast action and great graphics, and I was still satisfied with the end result. The point is, a fighting game or any game needs these basic building blocks as a foundation, but a little extra here and a little less there never hurts but, go to far with or away from something and you've got a recipe for disaster.
These are also the things I'll be basing my reviews on. Its going to be tough because most of the games I've played are older and dated, but the point of most of my reviews should be this:
A true classic never ages.
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